The attack by a cadre of Islamist Al Shabaab gunmen on the Israeli-owned
Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi has focused attention, once again, on
American and British links to Muslim terrorist groups, from Al Nusra
Front and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant terrorists fighting the
Bashar al Assad government in Syria
to the Somali government of Hussein Sheik Mohamed, a Muslim Brotherhood
sympathizer in a country where Al Shabaab has its political and
religious roots…

Thomas C. Mountain, an independent journalist based in Eritrea,
discusses the history of al-Shabaab and the context of the Nairobi mall
siege; why al-Shabaab has become a mercenary army; Kenya’s blowback from
repeated military incursions in Somalia; the Saudi royal family’s
financial backing for Wahhabi groups including al-Shabaab; and the lack
of news on mass starvation and refugees in the Horn of Africa.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Former US Secretary of
Defense Robert Gates says a US military strike against Syria would be
like "throwing gasoline on an extremely complex fire in the Middle
East."

Gates, who was speaking at a forum in Dallas on Tuesday, also hinted
that Washington’s past military interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and
Libya showed that military action can lead to unintended consequences.

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About Me

I am the son of a Huichol medicine man, a Valiente, and a Zapatista. I channel Simón Bolívar when Hugo Chavez isn't in town. In a prior lifetime, I rode with Pancho Villa in the foothills of the Sierra Madre and the Chihuahuan Desert and while I will always admire him, in the end he was a disappointment